Before, during and after a work-in-progress, a published/debut author has likely read more than a few books on the art and craft of writing. Yet not all motivation or inspiration comes from books on writing, in fact favorite novels are just as likely to be kept close at hand. With this in mind, The Divining Wand asked its authors:

What books do you keep nearby or go back to as you’re working?

And this week the following authors — including Laura Dave, the most recent addition to TDW — replied:

“I think of it as self-medicating with writing books. I keep a pile of them beside me as I write a novel, and flip through them as needed, not really for specific info but for their calming properties. The two I pick up again and again are Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Carolyn See’s Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and other Dreamers.”

“Slouching Toward Bethlehem, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, The Feast of Love, The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Everything Changes, Something Borrowed, The Lost Legends of New Jersey and On Writing.”

“I keep books of poetry by W.B. Yeats, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Mathew Arnold to read when I need beautiful words to inspire me. I always have my online dictionary and reference website open. I consult both, but especially the latter, often throughout the process. For regular reading, I try to keep a good mystery by my side, and if there are none, I will always go back to The Chronicles of Amber* by Roger Zelazny.”

“I always keep Mary Oliver’s poems close to me when I’m writing. Sometimes I read a poem or two before I get started on my own work to remind myself to be mindful of my word choice and to enjoy the process even when it is frustrating me. Mary Oliver often celebrates life in her writing, from birds and trees to people and great loves, sometimes losses, which is what I am trying to do in mine.”

“I have a well worn copy of Janet Burroway’s WRITING FICTION A GUIDE TO NARRATIVE CRAFT. The pages are highlighted, paperclipped and flagged with sticky notes. I also have several novels from favorite writers that I will open at random and read from whenever I find myself stuck.”

“It depends on the book I’m writing. For my last, because it was first person and relationship-driven, I kept looking at Nick Hornby’s HIGH FIDELITY, Curtis Sittenfeld’s PREP, and Richard Ford’s THE SPORTSWRITER.”

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Announcement: The winner of Friendship Bread by Darien Gee is Janel. Congratulations!

Please email diviningwand (at) gmail (dot) com with your mailing address and your book will be sent out promptly.

Acclaimed as magical, graceful, and poetic, Rebecca Rasmussen makes a spring debut with her novel, The Bird Sisters on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. And, with birds on the wing to our homes, what perfect timing!

Lyrical in her writing, the author is also precise and clear about the focus of her story. The book’s idea came from two questions: Rebecca’s curiosity about her grandmother’s family history, and what does it mean to be home and to stay there?

For Rebecca, this is deeply personal. Since her parents divorced when she was a baby, her life was split — growing up in Spring Green, Wisconsin and Northfield, Illinois — and it caused her to feel that she didn’t belong in either place. As a result this writer draws on the experience, saying: “I suppose that’s why in my fiction, I pay very close attention to place; I’m constantly searching for a way to make home feel like home.”

As for The Bird Sisters, it was born from the Emily Dickinson poem:

“These are the days birds come back, a very few, a Bird or two, to take a backward look.”

Then the author created two elderly sisters who had spent their lives caring for injured birds — allowing them the freedom to someday fly away — and the storyline evolved into the following synopsis:

When a bird flies into a window in Spring Green, Wisconsin, sisters Milly and Twiss get a visit. Twiss listens to the birds’ heartbeats, assessing what she can fix and what she can’t, while Milly listens to the heartaches of the people who’ve brought them. These spinster sisters have spent their lives nursing people and birds back to health.

But back in the summer of 1947, Milly and Twiss knew nothing about trying to mend what had been accidentally broken. Milly was known as a great beauty with emerald eyes and Twiss was a brazen wild child who never wore a dress or did what she was told. That was the summer their golf pro father got into an accident that cost him both his swing and his charm, and their mother, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler, finally admitted their hardscrabble lives wouldn’t change. It was the summer their priest, Father Rice, announced that God didn’t exist and ran off to Mexico, and a boy named Asa finally caught Milly’s eye. And, most unforgettably, it was the summer their cousin Bett came down from a town called Deadwater and changed the course of their lives forever.

Rebecca Rasmussen’s masterfully written debut novel is full of hope and beauty, heartbreak and sacrifice, love and the power of sisterhood, and offers wonderful surprises at every turn.

Gentle, yet so honestly perceptive in her storytelling, Rebecca shares both heart and soul in creating immediate intimacy with Milly and Twiss. In the book, the time frame is only from breakfast to the evening meal — less than twelve hours — but during that day the sisters’ background and basic life is told in flashback memories. While each go their separate ways, doing daily chores they have done forever, thoughts and feelings explain what happened to keep them at home. Yes, the time frame kept everything neat and focused, but what was the specific reason for its use?

The author explained: “I wanted to slow down the present action of the story and really focus in on the pace of the sisters’ lives when they are older, and I thought what better way to do that than to showcase a single day in their lives.”

Poignant and bittersweet, The Bird Sisters is built on the factual theme that our backgrounds shape our future. Which is enormously sad since Milly and Twiss barely had a chance for personal dreams. Their parents did but — when their dreams went unfulfilled — their daughters paid the price for adult disappointment. And, yet, it is their bravery in the face of betrayal and dreams denied that bind them together in strong sisterly love.

In her guest post, Semper Fi, Rebecca Rasmussen proved that even when faced with difficulty and disappointment, the joy of hope remains. Why? Because she has a gift of taking states of loneliness and despair and, in elegant prose, write of their consequences as truly beautiful. Milly and Twiss could have lived much more and still their story is what it is — a tale of a magical world. Admitting that sacrifice can be incredibly sad, the author believes it can be incredibly beautiful at the same time. For her sisters Rebecca says, “I wanted to depict loneliness but not in place of the love of the sisters. They do what they do almost entirely for each other, and to me that is admirable.”

TRUTH: The result is beautiful! After all, what readers hopefully will take away from The Bird Sisters (debuting in two weeks) is Rebecca’s message of: “Love is timeless, first. And so are dreams.”

The Divining Wand’s message: The Bird Sisters soars and then nests in one’s heart.”

Book Giveaway: The Divining Wand is giving away one copy of Rebecca Rasmussen’s The Bird Sisters in a random drawing of comments left only on this specific post. Comments left on other posts during the week will not be eligible. The deadline is Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. EDT with the winners to be announced here in Thursday’s post. If you enter, please return Thursday to see if you’re a winner.

The first time I walked off the course and back to the starting line I felt justified in my choice to quit. I was in terrible pain. I had lost my breath. I had cramps in my legs, in my heart. Girls were passing me on all sides. Their ponytails were swishing right out of my view. So here’s what I did: I simply walked back to the place I’d started.

The year was 1992, and I was a freshman in high school, thirteen years old. I had a shaky relationship with just about everyone in my family, though I remember my mother coming to this cross-country meet, my first. I remember she wore my dad’s boxy old yellow windbreaker, which I took from his closet the last time I visited him and my stepmom in Spring Green, Wisconsin, though I don’t remember why.

“You’ll do better next time,” my mother said, when she saw me near the starting line.

I’ll tell you this: a part of me wanted to get in the car with her. To stop and pick up pizza at Malnati’s on the way home. To rent a funny movie and eat sour cherry candies. To forget about cross-country and move on to field hockey or dance. Or chess even.

But I’ll also tell you this: an even bigger part of me wanted something else entirely, something I couldn’t put a name to, but knew as a secret deep in my heart. And that’s what I got—exactly what I wanted—that early Saturday morning in September, while girls sprinted into the chute and parents cheered and brightly colored ribbons flapped in the breeze.

“Come here right now,” my coach, Mr. Baker, said to me, in a voice I thought only parents were allowed to use.

“I think I’ll take her home,” my mother interrupted.

“Not yet,” Mr. Baker said and pulled me away from my mother, which I remember thinking was impressive. People didn’t say no to her.

When we were alone behind a grand old Illinois oak tree, Mr. Baker asked me why I’d stopped running, why I came walking back, why I gave up.

I told him what I told you. Cramps. Pain. Breath.

“I don’t care if you’re the last girl out there and you crawl in on your hands and knees,” Mr. Baker said. “You don’t ever give up like that, do you understand me?”

“I couldn’t go on,” I said, looking at the electric leaves up in the tree.

Mr. Baker put his hands squarely on my shoulders and looked me
directly in the eyes, which nobody had ever done before. (I come from a long line of side-glancers.)

“You can always go on,” he said very seriously.

I don’t know why, but I wanted to wrap my arms around this man. His strength and strange, unwarranted belief in me was what I’d been looking for in members of my family and what members of my family couldn’t give me just then, and here Mr. Baker was, a man I barely knew, a man with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.

“I wasn’t going to win,” I said, knowing then that that was the real reason I’d quit.

Mr. Baker smiled. “This is the first brave thing I’ve seen you do.”

“What?” I said, beginning to smile, too, though I didn’t know why.

“Tell the truth,” he said, and hugged me so securely I thought I’d turn blue. “You’re a good kid, you know. I think you’re going to be all right.”

(Words that were so wonderful I started to cry.)

***

I don’t know if you can teach someone to have heart or not, but that’s what Mr. Baker did for me that day and that strength of heart is what I’ve carried with me all these years. If a door closes, I find another one to try to open. If ponytails are passing me, I go after them instead of giving myself over to negativity and turning away.

Crossing the finish line, having guts and grit, is what’s important to me. Knowing that I didn’t quit—that I don’t quit—makes me proud, confident, happy.

These days, I’m a writer more than I’m a runner, though I still try to hit the pavement four or five times a week. Writing, I’ve learned, takes the same tenacity, the same hard work and hard-won belief in one’s self. I’ve seen so many talented writers give up, and I want to grab them by the shoulders and look directly in their eyes and tell them what Mr. Baker told me. Keep writing even if you have to crawl on your hands and knees.

My first novel is coming out with a large New York press in April. From the outside, my story looks so easy and breezy and, well, full of beauty. The truth is that I fought for my book every single step of the way. I fought for it when people kept saying no for months and months and months. I fought when they said, “we need to think about sales figures.”

I am fighting for it even now.

And you know what: it probably won’t sell a million copies, I probably won’t be able to quit my job and shop at Whole Foods for herbs and nuts and fish, and I probably won’t wake up and see my name in The New York Times any time soon.

But on April 12th, I’ll be smiling. I promise you that.

Writing a book, finding an agent and an editor, finding my way through all of the no, you can’ts! has been the longest race of my life and I’ll have finally made it to the chute—without fanfare, maybe—but on my own two feet.

(A thought so wonderful I know I will cry.)

***

I haven’t seen Mr. Baker since I was a senior in high school. Is he alive? Is he still coaching running? I don’t know.

That warm September day at the cross-country meet was the beginning of a relationship that changed my life. He taught me about being brave, about being bold, about fighting for what you want and deserve in life. He taught me about nourishing myself in every sense of the word.

He told me about his time in Vietnam, about never giving up even when people around him were dying in muddy rice paddies.

I’ll never forget what he said.

Right before the next cross-country race, Mr. Baker and I exchanged presents, if you can call them that. I gave him my father’s old yellow windbreaker, which he wore to most every meet for the next four years, and he gave me a Semper Fi flag he’d had since the war and which I still keep in my treasure box in the closet.

Whenever I find myself alone on the course now, in the middle of a race that’s even less defined than when I was a teenager, I think of Mr. Baker—those blue eyes and that flag—and I keep going.

I keep hearing him say, have some heart, Rebecca.

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Book Giveaway: The Divining Wand is giving away one copy of Lori Roy’s Bent Road in a random drawing of comments left only on this specific post, Lori Roy and Bent Road. Comments left on other posts during the week will not be eligible. The deadline is Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. EDT with the winners to be announced here in Thursday’s post. If you enter, please return Thursday to see if you’re a winner.

The talented Rebecca Rasmussen introduces readers to her beloved state of Wisconsin as she pays fictional homage to her grandmother in the debut novel, The Bird Sisters coming April 12, 2011.

This one sentence describes the book: The Bird Sisters is a lush and moving story about discovery and disappointment, failing and forgiveness, and the enduring bond of family.

And critical praise follows:

From Publisher’s Weekly: “Achingly authentic and almost completely character driven, the story of the sisters depicts the endlessly binding ties of family.”

From Library Journal Review, Starred Review: “Rasmussen’s debut novel is full of grace and humanity. Her heroines are fearless and romantic, endearing and engaging, and her poetic prose creates an almost magical, wholly satisfying world.”

“The Bird Sisters is a unique, beautifully written, and heartbreaking story that explores the fierce bonds, wounds, and tender complexities of the human heart. Rebecca Rasmussen has crafted a magical debut.”–Beth Hoffman, Bestselling Author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

The Divining Wand has scheduled a presentation/review of The Bird Sisters for Monday, March 28, 2011 but, right now, let’s meet the author through her “official” bio:

Rebecca Rasmussen teaches creative writing and literature at Fontbonne University. Her stories have appeared in Triquarterly magazine and the Mid-American Review. She was a finalist in both Narrative magazine’s 30 Below Contest for writers under the age of thirty and in Glimmer Train’s Family Matters Contest. She lives with her husband and daughter in St. Louis. This is her first novel.

Indeed quite talented! But there’s much more to Rebecca and it’s time to get to know her better, upclose and personal:

Q: How would you describe perfect happiness?A: The moment right before you cross the finish line.

Q: What’s your greatest fear?A: Flying.

Q: If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?A:A: At my old camp in Eagle River, Wisconsin

Q: With whom in history do you most identify?A: The Pioneers.

Q: Which living person do you most admire?A: Marilynne Robinson + Alice Munro. (I cheated. I know.)

Q: What are your most overused words or phrases?A: “You know?” As in you know what I mean?

Q: If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?A: I don’t know if x-ray vision is a talent, but I’d like to have it.

Q: What is your greatest achievement?A: Writing my book.

Q: What’s your greatest flaw?A: I have been known to be a little too passionate.

Q: What’s your best quality?A: I have been known to be a little too passionate.

Q: What do you regret most?A: Losing touch with old friends.

Q: If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?A: I would like to try being a bird for a little while.

Q: What trait is most noticeable about you?A: My eyes, I think.

Q: Who is your favorite fictional hero?A: don’t know if people would call him a hero. But John Ames from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

Q: Who is your favorite fictional villain?A: I’m not super into villains these days.

Q: If you could meet any athlete, who would it be and what would you say to him or her?A: I’d want to meet a professional runner. Any one of them would be so interesting to go for a jog around the block with. Well, they’d be jogging, and I’d be running. Eventually, I’d say, “Go on without me.”

Q: What is your biggest pet peeve?A: When people chew with their mouths open.

Q: What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?A: Teaching.

Q: What’s your fantasy profession?A: A painter.Q: What 3 personal qualities are most important to you?A: Kindness, honesty, and heart.

Q: If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?A: Red curry with coconut milk.

Q: What are your 5 favorite books of all time?A: Gilead By Marilynne Robinson (Surprise!)
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Tracks by Louis Erdrich
The Progress of Love by Alice Munro
Disgrace by JM Coetzee

Smart, heartfelt, and ever so thoughtful, Rebecca Rasmussen is a new author/friend to follow on Twitter and become a fan of on Facebook.

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Book Giveaway: For those readers who have Kindles, The Divining Wand will honor the first 10 comments left only on this specific post, Suzanne Anderson and Mrs. Tuesday’s Departures — until tonight at 7:00 p.m. EDT. — with a download of Suzanne Anderson’s Mrs. Tuesday’s Departure. Please include the email address used to download and the ebook will be gifted to you promptly.

“Less than specific people, there are entire fictional worlds I’d like to live in – the dramatic romance of Diana Gabaldon’s Scotland in Outlander, the rebuilding of America in Stephen King’s The Stand, the wild sadness of the Greasers in S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, the sweeping epic future of Atlanta in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. Each of my favorite books is populated with amazing characters who live in a world too delicious to pluck just one of them from.”

“I would probably choose Fred the dog from Jennifer Crusie’s ANYONE BUT YOU. I think he’d get along nicely with my menagerie of pets (two dogs, three cats) and his fondness for stealing lingerie could help me find my bras when they go missing.”

‘Ask me on a different day and I might have a different answer, but the character who comes to mind today is Linda Voss, the protagonist and narrator in Susan Isaac’s wonderful novel Shining Through. Linda’s funny and genuine and smart and loyal–and when you need her to, she’ll tell it like it is. Who doesn’t want a friend like that?”/

“Hal Incandenza from David Foster Wallace’s “‘Infinite Jest.'” I’m not sure Hal and I would get along so well now, but I’m sure we would have been best friends as teenagers. It takes one truly athletic nerd to appreciate another.”

“I would love to hang out for eternity with Jo March of Little Women. To me, Jo is the quintessential early feminist and, dang, she’s just so full of life and personality. Who else would say no to Laurie?”

To be continued….

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Announcement: The winners of Confessions of a Rebel Debutante by Anna Fields are Gayle Lin and Tiffany D.. Congratulations!

Please email diviningwand (at) gmail (dot) com with your mailing address and your book will be sent out promptly.

During the fall The Divining Wand — in a series of six post recently honored by Suzannah Freeman of Write It Sideways — presented our authors’ best writing exercises. Tried and true, these exercises were designed to jumpstart both imagination and motivation, yet what about the intangible elements that set minds free while wrapping writers into their comfort zone?

To discover the answer our authors were asked:

Do you have any unusual writing rituals, secrets or superstitions that always work when all else fails?

The first in (hopefully) another insightful and helpful series begins with the following responses, including those new to TDW — ever popular Caroline Leavitt and debut novelist Camille Noe Pagan:

“Going for a walk almost always helps me get an idea or solve a problem. I like to tell myself the story as I walk as I would a friend or potential reader. That’s one of the things that is challenging about book-length work: keeping it all in your head. Yes, I use sticky notes and notebooks and cork boards, but still going over the story over and over and over again is necessary for me. And something about being outside and moving really helps.”

“After decades of procrastinating, I wrote my first book in my minivan, which taught me that if you want it enough, you can write anywhere and under any circumstances. So I refuse to believe in rituals. I take a page from Nike’s book — and just do it.”

“A clean office! I write so much better when my office is organized, dusted and tidy. I literally feel my creativity faltering when things are askew, so I tend to take a few minutes, before sitting down to write, to fix my piles (there are so many piles!), toss things in the recycle bin, etc. Also, I love natural light, so I like to keep my office window shade open. And, must have a big, tall glass of cold water! This trio works for me. ”

“When I’m stuck, I tell myself I’ll just write 250 words–even 250 horrible, nonsensical words. It seems more doable than, say, 1000. And nine times out of ten, it gets my creative wheels turning and I’m able to figure out a tricky scene or keep writing until I have several pages down.”

“’I’m writing,’” I say to myself at home, which means I should be writing, but instead I’m looking for inspiration in the refrigerator, in the cabinets, in the stubborn wrinkles in my daughter’s dresses. I’ll iron before I write at home. I’ll ponder the vacuum. I’ll think Bach or Yo-Yo Ma will solve this distractedness. Then a cup of tea. Yes, nice green tea. Tea cookies? Do spiders get hungry for something sweeter than gnats or flies? Maybe I should Google that. Maybe I should Google the oil spill in the Gulf and watch the robots trying to patch together the future miles beneath the surface of the sea. Maybe it’s all utterly hopeless and I should just take a nap and hope I dream about ice cream cones and spun sugar.
It’s all so daunting. So I go to Starbucks and, miraculously, the words start flowing…”

As The Divining Wand’s quest to discover how our favorite authors/friends perfect their natural skills comes to an end, the last — but not least — responses appear to: What have been some of the best writing exercises you’ve used in your writing process?

This week’s replies offer a variety of exercises and also introduce e-book author Dee DeTarsio and about-to-become authors, Rebecca Rasmussen and Lori Roy.

“I write even without pad and paper or laptop. That means I’ve become very comfortable walking and talking it out. As a matter of fact the very first thing I do in the morning once my family is out the door is go for a long walk. I talk plot points to myself, snippets of dialogue, ask my characters a few questions. I’m sure I’ve had more than my share of strange looks from passing drivers – but it’s the most freeing way I know of working it out. Then I come home and sit at my desk and “’transcribe’” my notes from walking.”

“In my writing group, we dissected Robert McKee’s book, Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. While it can be an intimidating tome, it provides invaluable information on character, plot, action, beats, structure and place. Reading it in a group setting helped make it more manageable.

“One of my favorite takeaways from that is to always keep my eye on my character’s quest: What does she want? It also helps me to map out her journey and not make it easy for her. By looking over a scene, I draw an UP arrow after a sentence that moves her toward her goal, and a DOWN arrow against something that thwarts it. Conflict is king in any drama, and I better make sure I have a lot of DOWN arrows thwarting her desires!”

“When writing a long story or a novel, I am afraid of an outline. I usually get a “‘great'” idea and then write at it for a while. Then I can bog down. And I’ve noticed that this happens to my students. I’ve labeled this “‘bog'” as “‘the tyranny of page 156.'” The question is at this point–what to do next.

‘So I do a “‘Twenty Things That Have to Happen'” list. And this is a list that you can write at any time, even before you start to write. So when I land in the bog, instead of drowning in it, I write the list. I know that things need to happen, and there they appear on the list. I grab one, and pull myself out of the bog.

“Why I like this is because it doesn’t scare me like outlines do, and it’s not necessarily in chronological order, so I can even just write a scene and put it in somewhere else. It pushes me forward, even if forward is sideways for awhile.”

“I am a big fan of John Dufresne’s writing books, The Life That Tells a Truth and Is Life Like This? Both books have lots of exercises in them. I find that when I really do the exercises, rather than just read them, my writing improves. Go figure!

“I also have Brenda Ueland’s 12 tips (from her book first published in 1938, If You Want to Write) on my bulletin board near my desk. I read them about once a day.”

“For the last ten years or so, I have taught creative writing to high school students, college students, adult students – you name them, I have taught them. For a long time, I would assign exercises and then we would share in class. It didn’t occur to me to actually do the exercises along with my students until recently. (I know: duh, right?.) One of my favorite exercises is The Postcard Exercise. Basically, as the teacher I go around gathering up postcards (on vacations, business trips, at little local shops, gas stations, and grocery stores) and each student chooses one. Or me in this case. What I love about this exercise is that everyone ends up with some image/drawing/abstraction he or she wouldn’t usually invoke in writing, which is what makes the stories that follow so freeing and also so interesting. So here are the rules: 1.) pick a postcard, 2.) write a story on the back of it, and 3.) send it to someone. My last postcard story involved a salmon run in Montana. I sent it to my father.”

“I have a couple of writing exercises that I use when working on a novel. If I find myself considering a major change in the novel–maybe rearranging the beginning chapters or adding a point of view character–I will save the novel under a new name before making the change. This removes some of the pressure. If I don’t like the change, I can always restore the original file. To date, I have never gone back to the original file.

“Another exercise I use, or perhaps trick is a better name for it, is to put away the computer and pull out a pen and paper if I am stuck on a particular scene. Stepping away from the novel in this way seems to always help when I find myself stumped.”

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Announcement: The winners of On Maggie’s Watch by Ann Wertz Garvin are Kristan and Tiffany D. Congratulations!

Please email diviningwand (at) gmail (dot) com with your mailing address and your book will be sent out promptly.